Mice are a common household pest and are particularly aggressive when the weather starts to get cold. Homeowners often wonder how to catch a mouse and mistakenly think that taking care of a mice infestation on their own will be cheaper and easier than hiring a professional. However, these do-it-yourself strategies can be ineffective at best and dangerous at worst and require the assistance of a Milwaukee wildlife control service. 

DIY Strategies

There are many DIY methods for eliminating all kinds of pests in the home, with mice being one of the most common pests that homeowners purchase traps and poisons for in the hope of ridding them completely. However, there are many reasons why these methods are not the answer:

• Mice are intelligent creatures and can smell human scent on a trap after you handle the trap, letting them know to steer clear
• Mice have habits that the average homeowner is unaware of, such as scurrying around the edges of rooms, making it easy for homeowners to set the trap in an ineffective location
• It is easy to place too much food on the trap, making it effortless for a mouse to take a piece of food off the trap without getting caught and rendering the trap as just another food source 
• Poison might eliminate some of the mice infestations at first but will not solve the problem in the long run as it depends on the homeowner continuing to leave the poison out, which can be harmful to dogs and cats
• Mice can become immune to some of the rat and mouse poisons commonly sold in the store
• Mice killed by poison may be eaten by natural predators like birds, foxes, and snakes, which can sicken or kill the predator 

Traps and poison may seem like good options at first, but these population control methods can backfire as they do not address why mice are burrowing in your house in the first place and may encourage even more mice to invade. Poison can harm or kill animals you did not intend to hurt, and traps can cause a mouse to suffer needlessly due to traps not always being effective at instantly killing. 

Benefits of One-Way Doors

A one-way door, or a door that enables an animal to leave your home but not return, is a more effective and humane solution for getting rid of mice than traps or poison. A one-way door works by mounting the door onto a building at a common point of entry, with a funnel leading into the residence. One-way doors often contain easily moved springs for pests going outside that cannot be reversed for pests trying to get back inside. Benefits of these doors include:

• Effectively eliminating mice without causing suffering and harm to them or other animals in the environment
• Preventing more mice, as well as other pests such as squirrels and bats, from entering the home
• Eliminating the need to leave bait out, as with a traditional trap, which can encourage mice infestations rather than prevent them

It is necessary to have a professional install any one-way doors that you wish to use to control an invasion of mice. If you use the wrong shape or size for the door or funnel, it can cause harm to the animal using the device, which defeats the purpose of using this humane method. The last thing a homeowner wants to deal with is an injured pest. In addition to installing one-way doors, a wildlife control specialist can seal any cracks or holes in your foundation that might allow mice to enter in the future.

Contact Skedaddle Humane Wildlife Control to assist with eliminating pests in your home while reducing suffering.